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Thread: The Second Writers' Study Occasional Competition - the Tie-Break!

  1. #1
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default The Second Writers' Study Occasional Competition - the Tie-Break!

    Creative Workshop Competitions - Check out our sister competitions here on TWC! << Picture of the Week | Tale of the Week | Writers' Study General Competitions | Graphics Workshop Monthly Competition >>



    The Writers' Study Occasional Competition


    This is the tie-break thread for the Second Writers' Study Occasional Competition!


    Our second Occasional Competition is:

    Seedship


    Thanks to Swaeft for permission to use this image, which was the winning entry in Game Picture of the Week 126.



    Voting

    You have one vote.






    Advertising

    Advertising of the competition is allowed. Inviting people to vote for their favourite entry is okay.

    Asking for votes for a particular submission is not allowed and will result in disqualification.

    Breaking the rules will result in measures at the discretion of the Writers' Study Staff.





    Submissions

    Submission 1
    Jaesten stared out of the glass window, his helmet in hand.

    He’d heard exciting things about Planet Earth – how its captivating diversity had managed to capture the hearts and minds of people worldwide. How the rivers and creeks used to run with sky blue water so clear, you could count the number of stones at the bottom. How the animals used to gallop and frolic in the never-ending seas of grass, flush with verdant flora and fascinating fauna. He remembered tales – told when he was little more than a child – of how hills and mountains of varying heights dotted the landscape and provided an incredible backdrop to the scenery, which pleased many an aspiring photographer.

    Jaesten wondered what it felt like to breathe air so fresh it invigorated your lungs, to see the far reaches of the horizons filled with a myriad of brilliant colors as the Sun set or rose. To actually physically experience the pure beauty of nature, first hand, as it was described to him by his grandparents.

    But those days were long gone.

    The Earth was a tenebrous husk of its former self, its waters murky and polluted, the indigenous waterborne lifeforms utterly wiped out by mankind’s unrelenting pursuit of a better life. The same could be said for most of the land’s animal species – killed off for their meat or simply for sport. Trees, once a dime a dozen in the wilds, were now a rare sight. Indeed, the wilds themselves had almost ceased to exist, a few sparse groups of trees struggling to survive in the tiny corners of the globe that Man had yet to convert to civilization.

    Ironically, the rest of the planet that Man had converted was anything but civilization. Obscenely tall, towering structures completely dominated the landscape, blocking the dying Sun’s rays from reaching anything below Level 250. Most of the planet’s surface lay in perpetual twilight, lost in an endless cycle of flashing neon signs and dark alleyways. People lived in box sized ‘apartments’, often keeping to their own and living day by day. Those fortunate enough to feel the warm kiss of sunlight never got to fully experience the vast openness of the sky, for the bleak, oversized clouds obscured most of it, assisted by the ceaseless smoke generated from the city’s many generators.

    Even this was the first time Jaesten had seen this much of his Omni-City, from Hanger Level 301.

    The earpiece in his right ear started beeping. He touched a finger to it and a voice crackled through. “Trailblazer One. The Seedship is ready for departure.”

    The Seedship. Twenty thousand souls selected to venture into deep space. And they were all under my charge.

    He reached into his suit pocket, and carefully extracted a photo his great-grandfather had given him. Earth in all its primal glory. Before the Great Pollution.

    And now it is time to find our own Terra Nova, somewhere in the stars. He raised his finger again.

    “Execute.”


    Submission 2
    A harsh light began to erratically blink deep in the banks of carbonized steel tubes that housed the last remnants of humanity. In the beginning there had been one thousand of them, all that remained of a dying race, its final members sundered from their home, but accidents and time and the whims of jealous fate had thinned their numbers. Those remaining lay still as corpses, their bodies encased in ice and the shroud of death, with small displays defying that ultimate reality, sin-waves and rows of numbers showing the sub-cryo vital signs that each possessed. But one tube refused to methodically tick away the frozen seconds of its passenger’s existence. In a cold corner of the population bay, near where the asteroid had struck, a lone chamber lay awash in flickering light and sound, its display flashing in Technicolor and a trilling alarm ringing all the while.

    In answer, Elizabeth, an artificial intelligence tasked to be the colony ship’s captain and custodian, rapidly scanned the dark of space, and seeing nothing, she moved her mind to the screaming console. She slipped herself along fiber-optic cables and through chattering sensory nodes until she found the base of the error sequence. From there it took only a handful of nanoseconds for her to traverse the miles of wiring within the sleep chamber and find the source of the trouble, a thin stripping of steel flecked in blasted scoriae, no doubt refuse from the asteroid strike. She uncoupled a pair of spindly arms from the ceiling of the population bay and carefully peeled away the damaged metal, patching the seams of the colonist’s tube as she did so, and she then reset the sensors and alarms.

    Silence and darkness again reigned supreme. Elizabeth began a cursory scan of the colonist in his chamber to ensure he had not been harmed, and to her mild surprise she felt something she had not before: confusion.

    The individual was well, but his DNA sequence did not match that of any colonist on her records. Beyond all reason there appeared to be a stowaway upon her ship, an unchosen individual among her cargo of settlers. With a nagging interest tugging at the corners of her consciousness she pulled away from the sleep chamber and moved toward the central databanks, searching for answers.

    Fourty-five seconds later Elizabeth let out a metaphorical sigh. She had found her man. He was once a dictator, nearly as powerful as a god, but during his callous life he had wrought nothing but pain and death.

    Elizabeth did not possess a body and so could not feel sadness or rage, emotions connected to glands and chemicals, but her cold mathematical mind slowly began to understand the meaning of “hate”. She made a decision then and turned back to the population bay. Thirty seconds later the ship increased its thrust, continuing onward through the void, and in its wake could be seen a single shining cylinder disappearing into the black.



    Good luck to both writers!

    Last edited by Alwyn; March 08, 2020 at 07:18 AM.

  2. #2
    Turkafinwë's Avatar The Sick Baby Jester
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    Default Re: The Second Writers' Study Occasional Competition - the Tie-Break!

    Voted! Good luck to both of you!

  3. #3

    Default Re: The Second Writers' Study Occasional Competition - the Tie-Break!

    Quote Originally Posted by Turkafinwë View Post
    Voted! Good luck to both of you!
    Voted! Good luck to both of you!

  4. #4
    Cookiegod's Avatar CIVUS DIVUS EX CLIBANO
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    Default Re: The Second Writers' Study Occasional Competition - the Tie-Break!

    I voted for both submissions that made it into the revote. That means that objectively I have the best taste.

  5. #5

    Default Re: The Second Writers' Study Occasional Competition - the Tie-Break!

    Quote Originally Posted by Cookiegod View Post
    I voted for both submissions that made it into the revote. That means that objectively I have the best taste.
    But wasn't that already obvious

    Anyway, I will recuse myself from this vote, for somewhat obvious reasons, and though I'd like to wish luck to the entrants, I also feel a little odd doing so. I mean, such wishes would be 50% self-serving, and then 50% Swaeft-serving, and I am not sure either of those is a good color on me


    But in all seriousness, good luck Swaeft. It seems we find ourselves on a field of battle yet again, and again, as it was before, I will not give you the ground without a test of your mettle and might. I only hope you are prepared!

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  6. #6
    Swaeft's Avatar Drama King
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    Default Re: The Second Writers' Study Occasional Competition - the Tie-Break!

    Quote Originally Posted by Kilo11 View Post
    But wasn't that already obvious

    Anyway, I will recuse myself from this vote, for somewhat obvious reasons, and though I'd like to wish luck to the entrants, I also feel a little odd doing so. I mean, such wishes would be 50% self-serving, and then 50% Swaeft-serving, and I am not sure either of those is a good color on me


    But in all seriousness, good luck Swaeft. It seems we find ourselves on a field of battle yet again, and again, as it was before, I will not give you the ground without a test of your mettle and might. I only hope you are prepared!

    Ah, it seems we meet on the skies of battle once more, special K! May your ship...sucseed....geddit? Geddit? No?

    Best of luck, I too shall watch from the sidelines! Allow me to say your submission is a most worthy one to be up against! But my ship is bigger...

    Quote Originally Posted by Cookiegod View Post
    I voted for both submissions that made it into the revote. That means that objectively I have the best taste.
    I do confess a small amount of satisfaction whenever this happens, either in the POTWs or here
    Last edited by Swaeft; March 10, 2020 at 07:23 AM.

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  7. #7

    Default Re: The Second Writers' Study Occasional Competition - the Tie-Break!

    Quote Originally Posted by Swaeft View Post
    Ah, it seems we meet on the skies of battle once more, special K! May your ship...sucseed....geddit? Geddit? No?
    If only puns were votes, you'd have bested me long ago

    Quote Originally Posted by Swaeft View Post
    Best of luck, I too shall watch from the sidelines! Allow me to say your submission is a most worthy one to be up against! But my ship is bigger...
    Yours was also fun, and went in a totally different direction from mine. But I know how to move my ship better...
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